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There is No News, Just Narratives

RUSH: This morning on CNN, they had a guest, senior writer Maggie Haberman of Politico. And they were talking about Hillary's interview with Diane Sawyer in which she said that (imitating Hillary), "Oh, yeah, Bill and I were dead broke. Oh, it was horrible. We didn't have anything. We were in debt, oh, it was horrible." And the fill-in host, Brooke Baldwin, said to Maggie Haberman, "On the issue of paying for the houses and the mortgages, the RNC is jumping on it as out of touch with middle class Americans. Is there any validity to that?"

HABERMAN: I think she handled the interview extremely well, with the exception of that "houses" answer about her income. That's the one thing I think she'd do over. I also don't think it's consequential that she said that. I think it will be meaningless in a couple weeks. The Romney gaffe fed into an existing narrative. There is not such an existing narrative that she's out of touch.

RUSH: Now, what an admission. Here you have a woman at Politico who writes the narrative every day, the template -- you know, Washington is a soap opera. Every day the script for the soap opera has to be written. Now, what she meant by that is, "Well, there was an existing narrative, that we wrote, that Mitt Romney was this rich guy, filthy rich, out of touch, never earned anything. He was so out of touch he didn't care about average people. He didn't care about little people," and that was the existing narrative.

So when the story appears with Romney and his dog on the top of the station wagon family vacation, it fit the narrative that Miss Haberman will not admit she constructed. (imitating Haberman) "But since there is no narrative that the Clintons are filthy rich and out of touch and embarrassingly whatever, then there's no story here." And this is exactly how it works, proving, folks, there is no news. The media is not about news.

The Politico reporter basically just said that what Mrs. Clinton said about being dead broke, being tone deaf, it doesn't matter, because it doesn't fit what anybody thinks about them so therefore it doesn't mean anything. But with Romney, oh, yeah. Romney was this rich guy, and he was always rich. He was filthy rich and he got rich as a capitalist. And he got rich as an investor. And it was horrible. And we have been tarring and feathering Romney for years because he's a rich guy.

So when the story comes up about Romney being a rich guy, well, the narrative's already there, it plugs right in, it fits. But the Clintons, no. What's the narrative on the Clintons? Oh, you want to hear the narrative on the Clintons? Some of the nicest, down to earth, hardest working people, care so much about other people, don't care a thing about themselves. Their entire lives have been about public service and public sacrifice. The Clintons are in it not for themselves; they're in it for everybody else.

The Clintons have answered the call. They're down for the struggle. They help the blacks. They help the poor. They help civil rights activists. They're into all of these things. Clinton watched black churches burn. They couldn't care less about money. They couldn't care less about having money. They're happy to pay their taxes. They do not hang around with rich people, except for Warren Buffett and practically everybody else, Bill Gates, you name 'em, but they do everything for public service.

So that's the narrative on the Clintons. And that was not the narrative. Obama put the story out that Clinton was a racist. Well, actually Clinton did say something racist. He was sitting with some equally rich white guy in South Carolina, and he said of Obama (doing Clinton impression), "You know, it's not that long ago that guy'd be the one bringing us our coffee." (interruption) That's right, that's who he told it to, Ted Kennedy. Yeah. That's exactly right. Clinton was sitting down with Ted Kennedy somewhere, and Clinton said (doing Clinton impression), "You know, Ted, it wasn't that long ago that guy'd be the one bringing us our coffee." And Kennedy said (imitating Kennedy), "No, scotch, but I get your point."

Obama heard about that and played the race card on Clinton, and you just don't do that. Here's a guy, the first black president. Clinton got mad (doing Clinton impression), "They played the race card on me. I can't believe they did that." But that never became a narrative. That was a one-off. The Clinton narrative is a construct of lies. That's the whole point. The Romney narrative is a construct of lies. But who does the narrative? The media, the Maggie Habermans of the world. They're the ones that write the narrative. They're the soap opera script writers.

There isn't any news anymore. There simply is the narrative of the day, the template of the day. That's why when a school shooting happens, "Uh-oh, gun control! Narrative: A-ha's, guns bad. There's the story. Plug it in." That's why there's excitement and thrills when these kinds of disasters happen. Our next hurricane, they can't wait. The narrative: global warming caused it. Never mind the fact, you know, there has not been a major Category 4 or 5 hurricane that's hit the United States in 3,000 days. It doesn't matter. The next one that does, "See? Global warming." The narrative is already there. There is no news. And now I'm really finished with all this for now.